The Predators scored four, but their opponent tallied once more as Nashville fell to the Dallas Stars by a 5-4 final on Saturday afternoon at Bridgestone Arena.
Steven Stamkos gave the Preds a 4-3 lead with a power-play marker early in the third period, but minutes later, the Stars countered with goals on back-to-back shifts to ultimately seal Nashville’s fate on the day.
“It's just the games that we play well defensively, we can't seem to get that extra goal to put us over the hump,” Stamkos said. “Tonight, we score four and give up five, so it's about trying to balance that out, but it's obviously frustrating when you're in as many games as we are, and you're losing those by slim margins of errors. These points are critical, and we're not getting them.”
“It's a little frustrating tonight,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “I just talked about it all at length with the mental fortitude and the mistakes at the wrong time. We fell asleep on the two goals. We're in a good spot. Stammer, his unbelievable shot for a power-play goal gives us a spot. Then we [had] two major breakdowns. It's hard to overcome. We already started the game off probably on the wrong foot. Took some penalties early, senseless penalties, because we weren't moving our feet. Got ourselves back in the game; I really like that second period from our group, third period, same thing. It's just unexplainable, really.”
Luke Evangelista, Nicolas Hague and FIlip Forsberg also tallied for Nashville, but on an occasion where the offense came to life, four goals weren't enough.
“We weren't good enough from the start,” Hague said. “Just too many costly mistakes and they compound now and came back to bite us today.”
Dallas took a 1-0 lead early in the first, but late in the period, Evangelista’s wrister from the point found its way through traffic and beat Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger to even the score after 20 minutes.
In the second stanza, the Stars needed just 13 seconds to regain the lead on a power play, but just minutes later, Hague floated one into the twine for his first as a member of the Preds. Then, 27 seconds after that, Ryan O’Reilly fed Forsberg, and the day’s bobblehead giveaway figure potted his seventh of the season to give Nashville their first lead of the afternoon.
After Dallas tied the game early in the third, Stamkos one-timed a power-play goal to put Nashville back up. But in a span of 47 seconds, the Preds had a pair of defensive breakdowns, and the Stars capitalized.
“That's a good team,” Brunette said of the Stars. “It was a hard game. I thought we had a lot of jam into our game in the second period, in the early third period, and then we just let ourselves right off the hook. That's the hockey game, and it's been happening in different arenas, like tonight, we scored enough to win a game. The other night, maybe we didn't score quite enough to win a game, but regardless, the end result is you're losing games.”
The Predators will soon jet off to Sweden to face the Penguins in a pair of games for the NHL Global Series in Stockholm, but before then, Nashville will face the Rangers in New York - and they’d prefer to get back in the win column before heading overseas.
“I mean, that's the part that sucks is when we're losing, we're not getting blown out and [it’s not like] we have no chance,” Stamkos said. “It's all one-goal games, empty-netter here, empty-netter there. We have to find a way to get over that hump. It's not going to be easy, but there's still a lot of hockey here, and we just have to find ways to get some points here.”
Notes:
Prior to Saturday’s game, the Preds announced forward Zach L’Heureux will miss the next 4-6 weeks with a lower-body injury.
Filip Forsberg scored the second Predators’ goal within a span of 27 seconds to give Nashville a 3-2 lead. Forsberg (325g-369a-694pts), who is set to skate in his 799th and 800th career games during 2025 NHL Global Series Sweden presented by Fastenal, can also record his 700th NHL point in his home country.
Nick Blankenburg extended his point streak to five games. Blankenburg previously had never recorded a point in more than two straight games.
The Predators will face the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Monday night before flying to Stockholm to face Pittsburgh next Friday and Sunday in Sweden.
